Accidental
by castle in the air
Summary: It was accidental, running into her. He hadn't watched where he was going. It was accidental, getting so wrapped up in her. He hadn't sought out love. But after all that, would it be such an accident to go after her? RaexRob
1. Prologue

**This is a story I've had circling in my head and I know I'm not nearly done with the other one but I shall continue it, I promise. I just had to start getting this one out now. It's only the prologue but hopefully it's decent. As a prologue there isn't too much going on, but eh, it's enough for now I think. Let me know what YOU think if you have time, dear readers.**

**Disclaimer: teen titans is not mine**

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**Accidental: Prologue**

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It was fall.

Leaves the colors of change swirled around

Richard Grayson stood, clad in his long, black trench coat, collared white shirt and black slacks, black shoes and red scarf. It was the only bit of color on him except for his eyes, which radiated a contrasting blue that challenged the autumn hues with their brilliance. His fingers rubbed an end of the scarf's fray between them, the softness lulling his thoughts as he got lost in them.

His vision blurred and he frowned, pushing the delicate frames back up the bridge of his nose to settle in front of his eyes. For years he had worn contacts, but somehow he found comfort behind the elegant glasses these days; he wouldn't go so far as to call it a Clark Kent complex, but he wouldn't deny that it wasn't far off either. A wind whipped unkindly through the setting of the practically deserted park and he pulled his coat around him tighter. Winter was making a cameo in the latter end of autumn, infringing on her time frame with typical icy attitude and Richard found himself indignant enough for both him and the season of apple cider and turkeys.

He looked down at his left wrist: 7:21 AM. A sigh and one more spared glance at the tree he had been staring at passed before he began to make his way to his new school. The entrance exams had been difficult but not impossible and apparently he had gotten the top scores, making him default class representative. It wasn't something he was particularly attached to but it was the kind of thing that a person like him was expected to take on, so he did not argue.

Richard Grayson had something to prove, after all: himself. Anything thrown at him, he took head on. Anything offered to him, he analyzed and accepted in a span of seconds if it was deemed worthwhile or useful. Anything that seemed impossible, he had somehow always made possible. This was his trademark, his perfection of the human behavior. He did not thirst for the immaculateness he had attained somehow, but he did strive for it, having grown up all along, being told how good this was and that was, now obsessed with establishing himself as someone apart from the rest.

He needed to be so different he was better...for himself, for his family, and more so perhaps for the rest of the world that he did not quite trust.

So it was with that mindset that Richard took his first steps into the private establishment of the Academy...

...and ran right into someone with the oddest shade of hair he had ever seen.

It was, of course, an accident, nothing more.

He knelt to help her pick up her things—on a second glance he had discerned her to be distinctly female—and apologized. She met his eyes with her own and he was shocked to find them to be a startling violet, deep as the flower and ten times as spellbinding. He felt ridiculous when his heart seemed to skip and as such, he disregarded it. Still, wordlessly, he handed her the fallen books, which she put neatly into the ragged knapsack she had slung over her shoulder.

"Thanks," she offered. They stood there a moment, possibly sizing each other up, if that made any sense. Richard suspected it didn't.

"It was my fault," he said lamely. She shook her head at him.

"No, it was an accident," she corrected him blandly, as if she couldn't care less whether it were a mistake or not.

The bell rang.

He was supposed to be in the auditorium by now as class representative, ready to give a speech. Instead he stood speechless in front of a girl with very pale skin, intense eyes and a mastery over lack of facial expressions.

"You should go. You'll be late," she told him and he moved past her, nodding as though he was blind, walking to where he needed to be. Then, a thought hit him. He turned and called out to her form, which was moving in the opposite direction.

"My name is Richard, Richard Grayson. What's yours?"

Her eyes threatened to drown him.

"Raven," she said shortly and continued to walk away, Richard staring after her for a moment before catching himself at it again and speeding off to the assembly hall, readying an excuse in his head.

_Nice way to start_, he thought dryly to himself but he realized was not entirely sarcastic as amethyst irises surfaced in his mind and he marveled at the strange stirring the girl had made in him.

He had a reputation for being rather beloved by girls wherever he went to attend school and his last one had been no different, girls asking him to meet them by the fountain or in the court yard, or something, telling him how they felt.

Asking him how he felt.

He was never unkind, but none of them ever made an impression. None of them had been able to move him and as a result, Richard Grayson had begun to suspect he was abnormal, strange even. Shouldn't he feel something when a girl said she liked him? He never had, until now. Without even trying this Raven had left him without a leg to stand on and he wondered if any of the girls who had previously confessed to him felt similarly as he did. If so, he felt bad; it was a rather confusing feeling or set of feelings welling up in him as he took the stage after offering his acceptable excuse to the school's principal.

"Good morning new students of the Academy. My name is Richard Grayson, and I will be your class representative..." the rest of his speech was far more interesting, entertaining even at points, and all the while he found himself searching for familiar violet eyes. So if many of the females in the assembly gave muffled squeals at their good fortune on having such a handsome representative, he did not notice. If the boys perked up at his strength innate in his mannerism and chiseled attitude, he did not notice. If he received a preposterous amount of applause for a banal introductory-to-school speech, he still did not notice.

What he did notice was that he could not spot Raven anywhere, and he wondered about that as he exited stage left.

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**Reviews are appreciated, as always. Thank you.**


	2. Chapter 1

I do not own TEEN TITANS.

This will be RobinxRaven. It is AU with dashes of that superhero charm we all know and love. Thank you for the reviews thus far. Review this chapter if you have time please. Just a word or two is always nice. In any case, here it is, chapter one finally. Thank you sekai no yakusoku for helping me with my stories and remember that I adore yours.

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_Accidental_

_Chapter One: Her Mother's Daughter_

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"Look, there he goes!" an excited voice pointed out.

"Ah, you were right! He's a ten," another equally interested one agreed.

"Who is he?" a third voice joined in.

"Richard Grayson, didn't you know?" the second replied.

"I knew that. We all heard it at the assembly. I mean, where'd he come from? I've never seen him around before," the third said, a little offended at the insinuation of her sometimes incorrigible obliviousness.

"We should find out," the first girl decided after a shared silence made it clear that none of them knew the incoming class's representative beyond his name.

"Wait, where'd he go?" the second asked as they all looked around to find that the blue eyed wonder had somehow slipped out of the corridor without them noticing.

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The man of their attentions had made a hasty disappearance, his hearing keen of their conversation as he passed. Absently, he ran his fingers through his hair with a sigh. It was the end of the first official month of school and several things had become quite evident: he was as attractive here as anywhere else; he was one of the better athletes, if not the best; he was without question the smartest person there.

Except for one.

There was a R. Roth who kept usurping him from rank one and while this did not bother Richard—who really was more intrigued than put out by the competition—it did pique his curiosity.

Why hadn't R. Roth taken top honors and been elected class representative? As far as he knew, that placement was strictly based upon the entrance exams and from their record thus far, he had his suspicions that this mystery brain had probably surpassed him in those too. So, why?

He couldn't lay his finger on a single feasible reason.

Still, with so much to do and so many people to help—he had a knack for being exactly where people needed him most at exactly the right time—he hardly had the extra minutes to ponder the identity of his only considerable equal. There was the track events and student council affair to deal with, as well as classes themselves and when those weren't taking over his attempt at a pristine life, the attentions of his classmates were.

The boys wanted to be him or befriend him. The girls flocked to him, very much like birds that had their wings flapping incessantly, as if the flutter would draw his eye to one more than to another, which it didn't.

"You're so perfect."

He had heard as much before and learned long since to refrain from the empty laughter that had, in one careless moment, once escaped him at the very idea. Perfection was, if anything, an ideal beyond attainment. No, what he was, what Richard Grayson was, was a model: a model student, a model son, a model body of human outsides and unexplored insides.

He was just that, nothing more. His past demanded it of him and he was rarely one to object what was asked of him. A son born out of wedlock, his mother and father had left him for nothing better than dead as an infant, not even bothering to leave him in the safety of the hospital. Oh no. They had taken him with them—and here's where the story gets fuzzy—and left him in a box on the side of a street outside of the city. No one—least of all Richard—knew what became of them, if they had separated then or stayed together, if they even cared.

Well, no, that was a lie. It was pretty obvious whether or not they had cared.

By some sweep of fortune, some nameless soul found Richard Grayson though. They found him and brought him the only place they could conceive of bringing a child that wasn't theirs: right back to the hospital. There the personnel identified him as the same baby delivered not even hours before and ticketed him with a wristband with his name, just so he didn't get mixed up.

Didn't get forgotten.

He spent the beginning parts of his life in an orphanage with some nice people and some mean people and some people who really could not be classified as either. Those were the people he clung to as a toddler and looked up to as a pre-adolescent and when he left at the age of fifteen those were also the people he thanked. Now, normally a fifteen year-old would not be allowed to live on his own, much less be released from the custody of an official and quite legal organization like his orphanage.

But Richard had made it a point to stand apart from the day he was born, and if this was the exception, then so be it. He would not be denied. In his own steadfast and quiet way, blue eyes piercing the air around him, he commanded respect and a yielding mannerism in people around him, even from a young age.

So it was that he left. He left and by the scrape of his nails managed to get a job or five that paid well enough to not only get himself the smallest of small apartments, but pay enough to take the Academy's entrance exams.

The Academy.

Such a prestigious and pretentious name all in one, it had caught his attention immediately. This was his biggest footstool, his biggest leg-up he could find. If he did well there he could get into any university, do anything he wanted, be free of what dutiful natures he had chained himself to out of necessity and well hidden fears.

Free of what little past he could remember.

Perfect?

He strove to be what was expected and then be more than that. If that was perfect to others, then maybe so, but in his book, 'perfect' didn't exist and maybe that is why Richard Grayson came so close...though not so close as R. Roth, and this is where our story really began anyway: with a R. Grayson and a R. Roth. Strangers to each other in the most worldly of perceptions, alike in ways that by all account should have at least made them related or something, set apart from the rest of things like no one and nothing else. Our story began, if you will remember, with them.

A collision. Books falling. Searching eyes.

An accident.

It began like that. Even if R. Grayson didn't know it.

And it was to his great surprise that he found himself running again into her familiar form, head curtained in violet waves and eyes flashing in the afternoon sun as he tried to hurry to his bike, late for work due to an overly long club meeting. Books fell to the ground, a few papers too this time. They swirled dangerously in the frosted breeze that spoke of a first snowfall in the upcoming week. Richard grabbed for them agilely, snatching them out of midair and returning them to Raven who eyed him with a little bit of annoyance this time.

Even though it was just another accident, of course. Just an accident.

"This a hobby of yours, boy blunder?" she asked, voice as lacking in inflection as ever, save a bit of sarcasm that had the same effect on Richard as a cat digging its claws into his shoulder.

"No," he said, insulted ever so slightly.

"Watch yourself. No one likes surprises," she warned, returning her things to the familiarly ragged knapsack; Richard noted that it seemed to have a new tear near the right strap.

"I do," he replied automatically and regaining control of himself, arched an eyebrow as she scowled openly now.

Nothing hidden in that face with amethyst eyes now...that was definitely irritation he was seeing. He liked having the chance to see her again though, whatever her inclination or disinclination towards him.

That much he could not refute.

Her eyes flickered ten different shades of violet-blue, glinting with the sun, and he found himself thinking that her very, very pale skin was reminiscent of porcelain. It occurred to him briefly that this Raven, no matter how rude, certainly looked the part of perfect, well, she would have if he believed in such a thing, he reminded himself quickly.

"Right, well you would," she returned, breaking him from his thoughts, and began to walk away. Blue eyes picked up on something. A paper, strayed from the pack had stuck stubbornly under the toe of his black shoe. He sighed again.

"Wait!" he picked up the paper and waved it at her when she turned to spare him what was, if possible, an even more annoyed glare that lightened noticeably as she saw the paper clutched in his hand.

He caught up. She stuck out her hand. He began to hand it to her.

And he saw in the corner what was on the corner of every school assignment: the name, heading, date, class and hour. The last ones didn't concern him as much as the first.

"Thanks," she relented with the shortest version of gratitude she could conceive of and went to make a hasty exit.

"You're R. Roth?" he asked to her retreating back, incredulous.

"What's it to you?" she let her stand-offish self take over, still doing all but fleeing from the confused peer.

"Hey, wait. I just wanted to—" he stopped mid-sentence with his mouth still open as she cut him off, whirling on him.

"If you haven't gotten the message yet, Mr. Grayson then please take careful note of what I am about to say to you: don't talk to me. Don't think about talking to me and most importantly, don't come near me again. If I am clumsy, I will remedy that myself. If I am in trouble, that too I can account for. Understand?" Her words were fast, biting and cold, though not so cold as her eyes as she turned on her heel and quite nearly marched away from a flabbergasted Richard.

What in God's name had he done to her except help?

What, indeed.

"Wow, you got her more steamed than I ever have," an amused voice chuckled and Richard was greeted by a new face with forest green eyes that twinkled in a way he suspected would much annoy the most recently departed company.

"Guess so," Richard replied, still put out and then added, "Who are you?" The green-eyed man stuck out a hand and threw him a very wide smile.

"Gar is fine," he introduced himself and Richard returned the favor. They sized each other up, sort of a guy thing to do it seemed.

"So what do you know about her?" blue eyes were fraught with many pointed question marks. Gar spared him yet another laugh that Richard was beginning to think was the newcomer's way of not feeling pressure.

"Not much, but no one does. She gets the best grades, doesn't talk to anyone if she can help it and when she does, she usually...well, you saw." At this, Gar raised his hands as if surrendering to some hidden force. A grin twitched at the corner of Richard's mouth. The man was funny in a sort of melodramatic way.

"She seems to hate me pretty fairly," Richard observed airily. Gar snorted.

"You're not special buddy, believe me."

"You make it sound like you try to irritate her," the would-be top ranking student said probingly.

"Only sometimes, when I get really bored," Gar defended.

"Or really stupid. She might claw your eyes out," Richard warned, only half joking about a girl he was completely mystified by.

And at the same time, completely captivated by.

"Tcha, probably not. She's frigid and bitchy even but she's smart and knows the lines here are thickly drawn. She's not the kind to cross those lines," Gar clarified.

"Too much attention?" Richard supposed. Gar nodded.

"Weird, kinda creepy too, right?" Gar pretended to shudder and Richard laughed.

"Well, I wouldn't call her creepy so much as...different," Richard finally decided on, which earned him an incredulous look from green eyes.

"Like her, do you?"

Such a simple question.

"I don't know."

Such a backwards answer.

"You seemed to be in a hurry anyway," Gar pointed out oddly and Richard swore, warranting an amused look from his new acquaintance. "Hot date?"

"Work," Richard said shortly and hopped his bike, kicking up the stand as he undid the lock and shooting off, down and out of the entry courtyard of the Academy leaving a perpetually amused Garfield Logan to his lonesome.

"Yo, Gar," a jovial voice accompanied the hand on his shoulder. Green eyes turned to meet the face of Victor Stone.

"How's the year treating you?" Gar asked.

"Fair, fair. So what's the deal with the new kid?" Victor asked, scrupulous to those around him and his friend of three years.

"Well, in short, he's already made a pretty square enemy of your little sister," Gar said affably and Vic gave him an Oh-is-that-so, look.

"That's not unusual. Not many people get Rae," he commented and Gar shrugged in agreement.

"True."

"And she's not my little sister," Cyborg corrected, a little irritated.

"Aw come off it Vic. You know you'd fight tooth and nail for the girl," Gar poked the bigger man in the side and his friend eyed him thoughtfully.

"So would you, but I don't go around linking your family tree to hers do I?" he said pointedly and Gar shrugged.

"Only because I thought of it first," was his cheeky reply.

There was a brief and comfortable pause between the friends before Vic spoke.

"Have you noticed Rae's been kind of...shifty lately?"

"More than usual?" Gar tried to joke but he knew it wasn't one.

"Get serious man. I think I saw a serious cut on her arm the other day but she said she fell or something...you think she's in any trouble?" Vic was concerned and even now he could tell where people founded their big brother tagline in him.

"I don't know dude. I mean, how could she be? She's always here or at home right? I don't think she's the kind of girl to go out carousing, you know?" Gar pondered aloud and Vic sighed.

"You're probably right."

_I hope I am_, Gar thought, more worried than he let on.

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It was midnight and Richard Grayson was just getting off of work—he was a delivery boy for a local pizza joint. He didn't mind the mundane quality of the job and he knew how to get everywhere on time, so it suited him…except when he was late of course, like today. His boss had chewed him out royally and as he made his way to his one room apartment, he sighed. The city streets seemed very empty, but then again, they would be at midnight, wouldn't they? It was then that he heard the clink of metal behind him. He turned. There was a burly guy with a chain, heavy by the looks of it, and a catty looking female with the hottest shade of pink hair he'd ever seen. On a second glance he also noticed a rather shorter member of their party with beady eyes and an exponential amount of mechanics strapped to his body.

_Okay, this is weird_, he thought quizzically. The one with the chain whirled it. _This is probably bad too,_ he added blandly and looked both ways with his peripheral vision...he could probably make a run for it...not that he doubted he could take them but he was tired and the metal links were looking increasingly unwelcoming. Training or no training, he hadn't had any professional instruction; he'd only taught himself how to defend and attack if need be and if need was not imminent this night, he would be very glad of that.

"Little boy on his way home to mommy?" The larger one prodded and Richard turned cold. No one had ever mentioned his mother to him, least of all some brute of a stranger with a Neanderthal's look about him. He did not answer and turned to stalk quickly away. He heard the chain coming a mile a way and spun on his heel, ducking and grabbed it, snatching it in midair with his hand. It lashed backwards and struck the outside of his hand anyway, but he did not release his grip and tugged on his end of the chain.

"No," Richard said with steel in his voice.

"Pretty boy's a fighter is he?" The girl circled him like a vulture...a pink vulture, his mind amended and it's a testament to his personality that he was able to conjure several entirely ridiculous images from that thought in the middle of his rather unfavorable situation.

"Pink doesn't suit you," he smirked and the girl scowled.

"A fashionista too," she mocked and Richard was startled when she tripped him; for some reason he hadn't been expecting an attack from her, not because she was a girl, but...well, he just wasn't and he let go of the chain as a result. He rubbed his head ruefully and his eyes widened as he saw the metal links coming on a quick crash course for his head. Rolling out of the way, he heard where some of the cobblestone shattered under the force and sprung to his feet in a defensive posture to give the illusion of making a stand.

But he knew better.

And then he ran. He was a fast runner but he could feel the strange crew catching up to him. And then he felt more than anticipated the chain strike him hard across the back. He fell, spine and back screaming with yet-to-be-seen bruises and coughed as he struggled to get back up. A foot crushed him back to the ground.

"Now, let's see what the class rep has up his sleeve, or better yet, in his pockets," the technologically obsessed boy was talking now and approached the pinned Richard. He was sure he was going to be robbed when the foot's weight on his back left him and he heard a grunt and the sound of a rather large body falling. Quickly he got to his feet, back still throbbing immensely. What he saw when he turned to face the gang was strange. A shadowed figure proceeded to beat the living daylights out of each member and then tie them up together to a lamppost. The figure wore a hooded cloak and from a few flicks of its edges when it spun away from her as she had floored all the miscreants, he could tell it was a female.

Well, hopefully. One never really knew in this city.

Once they were all secured to the post, she approached Richard as silently as she had come.

"Are you able to make it home?" she asked, no expression, no care, no worry, no disdain or anything, nothing.

"Uh, yes, thanks," it was a feeble gratitude but he was still confused. The strange hero turned to leave but Richard held out a hand. "Wait!" The shadow paused. "Who are you?" From somewhere, his savior pulled what looked like some kind of firing device and shot a metal cord out of it or some such and began to launch herself up onto the roof of the nearest skyscraper. Richard almost thought she would not answer him when he heard her monotone voice carry down like an echo of something that never was.

"I have no real name but if you need one, the only one I can even consider giving you is Arella."

And she disappeared over the top of the building.

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She didn't know why she gave him her mother's name. It seemed the only proper thing to do. In a way it was tribute to the dead woman, murdered long ago by someone Raven had yet to meet. As she removed the hood and the eye mask, she took one of her braver moments by the handles and eyed her reflection in the mirror. Her alias had been in the papers anything from Nightwing to Shadow to other variations on it. A sigh escaped her. She had not ever expected to have to rescue the ever popular and affable Richard Grayson and wished, not for the first time since they had met, that she had not met him at all. She could tell when people were of a curious nature, even worse, of a sleuth's tendency. He was.

And she couldn't have him finding her out, could she?

Because Raven Roth was not just the second ranking student in the class. She was Arella, or Nightwing, or Shadow or other names in the daily news or midnight bulletin: she was the lone vigilante of the city she hid in and protector of people who could not defend themselves, people like her mother. She bit her lower lip and the sting drove away whatever possible tears might have come. Breaking away from the mirror, she shed the cloak entirely, leaving it on the floor of the main area of her own tiny apartment. She was tired; regardless of Grayson's words, she had followed him home quietly and unnoticed to make sure he would truly be alright, having ascertained that she then went home, but it was now 3 in the morning.

And she still had homework.

Rather than hitting her head on something cold and solid, she opted to take a shower and wash the grime of the dark alleys and misbegotten streets off of her pale skin, and nurse a couple new bruises and soon to be scars.

They were minor, however many there were and she only wished every night was so easy as this one, and thought to herself, not for the first time: it is hard to be alone.

And as quickly as it had come, she pushed it away. She was alone, it was to be this way. She could not risk thinking otherwise.

It would only end worse than it began.

With that, she turned the knob on the shower and breathed into the hot steam, not even flinching as it washed over some of her new cuts, the bits of red running in and out of the otherwise crystal clear water. Her foot slipped, however and her arm collided with the tile of the shower wall and she winced. There was a rather large bruise there...

Maybe she'd do her homework _during_ class tomorrow.

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Hope that was interesting enough, review if you have time please.

I thank those who did review the prologue, I know it's not a terribly popular theme, my tendency to play around with AU, but eh, I like AU very much and I don't trust myself to try and write about them as the real teen titans. I'll leave that to my pal Rei, sekai no yakusoku who does a splendid job.

-castle

p.s. there's a reason for her having 'Nightwing' as one of the things she's been referred to. I'm not just messing up here, I promise.


	3. Chapter 2

Warning: this will be a robin x raven story of some fashion, but not perhaps the way one might expect—or maybe exactly as you might expect, whichever. But I warn anyone who doesn't know already, just in case this isn't your kind of thing. On that note even if they are not your favorite coupling or whatever, I appreciate you clicking in to read this for however long you choose.

Thank you to all those who have reviewed thus far, especially: Gray Dove, Cherry Jade and The Writer you Fools

And now, chapter two:

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_Accidental_

_Chapter Two: the importance of being on time_

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She cursed. It didn't happen often, and when it did it was never very bad, but today she cursed.

And it was bad.

It was so bad, in fact, that her words need not be repeated. One may simply trust that bad was as bad could get. But why, you might inquire. See, Raven Roth was late to school the morning that followed her rescue of the class rep and while on any other day this could be easily excused with a mumbling and meaningless apology to the professor, this was not any other day. She didn't have a spot of luck, it seemed.

See, today was the day her new professor decided to assign partners for the semester projects and as stated before she was late. That wasn't the whole problem though, oh no. What it was, was the fact that a certain someone else was also late that morning, on her heels by maybe three seconds, nine tops. So it was that when their instructor had to quirk his otherwise motionless brow a second time in the span of a minute, he felt it suiting that the two late arrivals should be paired.

She cursed again.

Richard politely pretended he hadn't heard the onslaught of obscenities that he had no doubt he was the reason for and settled for uncomfortably scratching the back of his head in thoughtful resignation. As she uttered a particularly colorful oath, he had the good sense to conceal his inward wince. No matter that she was probably smarter than him, that they would be the supposedly fine match to make the best scoring final, no matter, because the long and short of it was that Raven had made it quite clear she did not wish to be within two yards of him for more than two seconds.

Then something occurred to him. This situation should not have been possible at all...

"Wait a second. What are you doing in my class?" he asked her without care for his own well-being, momentarily forgetting her current state of temper. At the deepest and darkest glare he had ever encountered, frosty with lots of extra frost, he remembered and bit his tongue. Too late, but what could he do? He waited for an answer.

After another unsettling moment of unfavorable scrutiny, she clicked her tongue thoughtfully before replying: "I switched because my schedule said I was missing this as a prerequisite; it was the only opening for the right time block." This was delivered in her consistently disinterested tone that only seemed to fluctuate with varying amounts of sarcasm or animosity. Richard was not surprised when she turned hard on her heel and all but marched to a seat in the back.

"Ms. Roth, you may take seat in the empty space behind Mr. Grayson," the professor said with a tenor that insinuated long hours of boring lecture and it was only because the professor was just that boring and bored with it himself that he failed to notice Raven bristle at the instruction.

"Yes, professor," she was clenching her teeth; Richard suspected she had fangs but wiped the silly thought away. They were canines; they all had them...it's just Raven's seemed a little more demonic in light of her downward spiral of moodiness so far that morning.

As for Raven herself?

She was certain she was going to get kicked out. In fact, she knew it. After all, killing a professor had to be under the lines of 'what not to do' in their high school handbook. It had to be. _That bloody man_, she thought darkly and sat with a graceful silence behind Richard's desk, soon filled by Richard himself. He felt more than saw the intense scowl burning two holes into his back and sighed.

_At least things couldn't possibly get any worse...right?_ He and she both thought with equable feelings of the need for self-preservation and the need for self-destruction, respectively. _They couldn't **possibly** get any worse_...

A minute passed.

_Right_, they both thought with the same amount of skepticism and that was probably the beginning of them agreeing on anything at all, even if they didn't know it.

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To their collective credit, neither directly blamed the other for having to stand outside the classroom, each holding a chair above their head for the remainder of the class, exiled to the hallway. To Richard's credit, he did not eye Raven with the curiosity and more than slight vexation he wished to express. To Raven's credit, she did not tell Richard how much she despised him in that moment.

It was insinuated pretty nicely though.

The class had been given about ten minutes to meet with their respective partners concerning the basic outline or premise of their projects; in that ten minutes Raven and Richard had made an admirable attempt to get along; well, Richard tiptoed verbally around the gothic girl and she in turn verbally ignored him. That was the first two minutes. The next two were filled with similarly forced and awkward phrases such as the infamous So and Yeah and an arched eyebrow here and there. Minutes five through seven were spent then with Richard now trying to reign in his irritation with R. Roth while she did likewise for a reason he would not entirely understand since he was not privy to her alias. Eight through ten escalated into an intense bout of annoyed accusation and exclamation that gained the two the attention of the class and their professor, at which point they were banned under the reasoning of 'disturbing the peace' and sent out to the hallway with punishment in the weight of chairs in their arms.

And here they were. Raven glowered. Richard matched it.

"So..." Raven initiated the necessary talk with one of the self-same suppositions that had gotten them out there in the first place. _Here we go again_, they both thought blandly.

"Yeah..." he gave a grudging smile. She'd made it clear to him that her words of the day before still held strong, but he'd made it clear they'd have to take back seat to the importance of their grades. Raven seriously considered telling him just because he was class rep and had a reputation to maintain didn't mean she had to care and that she would gladly fail if it meant not having to spend concentrated time in his company. Aside from the fact that that seemed unduly harsh, she refrained also because she couldn't risk his suspicion. It wasn't natural for a person to have such aversion for a near stranger; surely he'd suspect, and then would come those pesky questions and then she'd be that much closer to having her secret identity found out and then...then...well...

Grimacing, she heard herself say tonelessly, "As long as we get top scores, I guess it's fine." She recognized the small nodes of what Richard believed to be understanding in his eyes and what Raven herself knew it to be false understanding, even if he didn't as he surmised part of her standoffish nature was due to sheer competitiveness.

"Great," he accepted her temporary white flag with more friendliness than perhaps he should have because her expression darkened slightly, if noticeably. "I mean, top scores, right. I'm sure we'll think of something." There, that was as lame as it got pretty much, but it seemed to suit the girl beside him who nodded slowly, as if some great weight was pushing her to incline her head by force. Richard shrugged it off and figured to himself that any reaction from her seemed to be the thing to hope for and he was batting a not-too-shabby percentage in the favor of indifference.

"So..." she stated again and her moment of wry humor by use of the word of the hour did not go unnoticed by her company who threw her an unabashed grin, which she answered with the slightest upward twitch at the corner of her mouth.

For all that it was not, it was at least enough.

---------------------------------

Lunch hour was always an odd time for him. He sat, blue eyes taking in a washed blue sky as his classmates all but flocked around him, jittering and chatting about this or that or these or those; he wasn't really interested, but nodded his head at the appropriate time so as not to offend. It was some time near the end of the lunchtime that the boys got up a game of soccer. For once, he stayed behind, eyes still glued to the sky, as though expecting some miraculous spectacle—a rainbow perhaps, made miraculous by the absence of rain. His limpid musing was interrupted by upset voices.

"I have asked you kindly to leave me to myself!" a light and feminine voice breached the quiet around Richard's otherwise empty lunch table and he looked over to see a ravishing girl with red hair facing some guy. Her arms were crossed and her face showed the tension between tears and fury.

"Babe, calm down. Just let it go," the guy said and proceeded to drape his arm around her shoulders. She smacked his arm away and whirled in the opposite direction, stalking away, red tendrils flowing behind her. The guy—still nameless, since such male scum was beneath a name—pursued her. Richard frowned. Obviously the girl wanted the guy to leave her be. Why wouldn't he listen? His expression hardened when the guy caught up to her and grabbed her arm harshly, causing the girl to exclaim in a cross between a whimper and a cry. Enough was enough. He went to help.

He had a thing for helping people who needed it, throughout his whole life he had had it in fact. Perhaps the superhero complex was just the more general level of his Clark Kent one.

Perhaps it stemmed from something deeper, something fated.

Perhaps not.

"I think you should do as she asks," Richard warned coolly and the guy cocked his head as if in challenge.

"Oh yeah?" So eloquent.

"Oh yeah," Richard replied both caustically and pointedly. His cynical use of the guy's own words was not lost on said guy and it got the rise out of him that Richard had predicted.

He had also had a thing for analyzing people for their weaknesses throughout his whole life, but back to the present...

"Get your hands off of her," a familiarly monotone voice came from behind Richard who glanced over his shoulder. When did she get here?

"Raven Roth. It's been a long time," the guy sneered. Raven's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Sure it has," she replied in a way that said it hadn't been long at all, but before questions could be raised, she did something rather unexpected. Raven stepped forward and delivered a resounding punch to the guy's gut. He fell to one knee but the point lay more in the fact that his hold on the redhead was relinquished and she stepped quickly away toward Richard. Raven turned to the stunned pair. "Stay away from him, Anders," Raven said, still monotone. When the Anders girl looked as if she might say she had been trying, Raven waved a hand dismissively and added, "Consciously, always, stay away from him." And with that she began walking away.

"I'll call you?" Richard yelled after her. She waved a hand again, a little less dismissively, as if to say 'whatever' and he rolled his eyes. So difficult...he turned to the redhead. "Are you alright?" he asked her and she nodded.

"I am. Thank you very much, Richard, isn't it?" she gave him a dazzling smile that seemed to pour from her emerald green eyes and Richard smiled back; she was infectious.

"You got it right. And you are...?" he left a gap for her to fill.

"Kori, Kori Anders, I'm new here," she filled it.

They looked around; lunch had passed it seemed and the courtyard was as empty as it could be. He tossed her a sheepish look. She laughed lightly and shrugged. He was blue sky and she was sunshine.

"What's your next class?" It was pleasantry, if a little more heartfelt than normal.

"Room 307-A?" she offered and closed her eyes, a little embarrassed at not really knowing what it was, only where.

"That's mine too. We can walk together," he replied, a little happier about the prospect of a boring lecture with the lively girl beside him to join in. They walked.

"Some girlfriend you've got there," Kori said carefully, but not meanly.

"She's not my girlfriend," he said automatically, missing the elated look Kori wore because he was looking straight ahead the whole time.

"Sister?" she ventured, more than a little skeptical. Richard let out a fast and thick exhale of amused derision.

"Er," he coughed politely. "No, she's not...she's just...she's Raven," he lamely summed up.

"Oh," Kori said softly and offered him a brighter smile.

---------------------------------

She chewed on the end of her pencil, a bad habit to be sure but she couldn't help herself—as often is the case with bad habits in general. This last sentence of her essay was driving her to the extreme borders of her intellect and she frowned more deeply as the words of old philosophers—most of them dead of course—and well-educated figures of a more contemporary nature failed to assist her academic endeavor. It had to be perfect, or nearly so. After all, she couldn't let him get top marks.

At this thought, her mind was kindly set to seething.

He was so damnably confident. _So are you_, a voice cheekily reminded her and she brushed it off, annoyed at herself now. Closing her amethyst eyes, she allowed herself a moment to collect her thoughts and rather uncooperative emotions before opening them again to the scene of her peers filtering out of the buildings, headed home for the day. A laugh made her turn her head and she took in the picture fully as it presented itself to her: Richard walked beside the girl from earlier—her name was Kori if Raven's memory served her properly—and he too was smiling. She rolled her eyes at the pair. _They were perfect for each other, deserved each other_, she told herself sarcastically as she stabbed at her essay with her pencil, making stray marks rather than a coherent sentence. Her frown changed to an unreadable mask as Richard caught sight of her and started over, Kori in tow and she defiantly asked herself: why should I care if they're getting all cozy?

It occurred to her she might be trying too desperately to prove something to no one but herself, but her pride—and possibly fear—effectively and rapidly buried that notion.

"Hey Raven," he greeted congenially and she mocked him in her head to distract herself from how his eyes were a little kinder when he turned to glance at Kori. _Hey Raven_, she refrained from scowling and settled for no emotion at all as she thought darkly to herself: _what does he think we are, friends?_

_Tcha, right._

"Hello," she said tersely, twisting her pencil between the fingers of her right hand absently. She tended to fidget when she was agitated or unhappy. Why did he have to be so courteous? Most people who 'knew' her did her a favor and just walked on by.

"This is—" he began.

"Kori Anders," Raven interrupted and nodded at the redhead.

"You know each other?" Richard turned to Kori who shook her head, making her perfect head of hair reflect the sunlight in waves of gold-red.

"Aside from the fact that I called her by her last name earlier in your presence, it should be obvious to you that I know of most people here, Richard," Raven said coolly and he had the grace to allow a bit of an awkward pause before continuing amicably.

"I should have remembred that," he paused and Raven thought: _yes you should_, and then he said, "Anyway, Kori and I were going to get something to eat. You want to come?" To her credit, Raven did not show her surprise. Of all the things she might have expected, this was not one of them. His next sentence was just as unpredictable, "We're meeting Garfield Logan and Victor Stone. They know you, I think." _They sure do_, she thought wryly and only just stopped herself from rubbing her temples in a thoroughly vexed manner. It was not a secret in the school that the first was less dissuaded by her coldness than most and that the second was for all essential purposes, her surrogate older brother. It was okay that people knew, because having friends—even just two—made her seem less suspicious. That aside, if she actually took the time to think on it, she did care for the two peers, much as she tried to distance herself from them the majority of the time.

"No," she said bluntly. The flash of relief in Kori's eyes was so brief that Raven hardly noticed it and Richard didn't recognize it for what it was and as such, both pushed the look unimportantly to one side.

"Aw come on," he encouraged. She let her eyes slit a little.

"No!" she took the liberty of sending him a withering glare and then turned on her heel, as it seemed was her preference to do, and speedily began to march away from them. If she had turned around she would have seen Kori eyeing her speculatively and Richard grinning like a madman. He found getting under her skin to be quite...thrilling. Part of him wondered at that. Probably it was just because she didn't show much of any emotion, so when he could get a rise out of her, it was fun. That was probably all.

Probably.

"I'll call you...around 11," he said for the second time, voice following after her. She flinched and waved a hand to let him know she'd heard him, even if she didn't look back. He won't call, she thought impassively as her peripheral vision showed Kori placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, a gesture Raven herself would have never even thought to initiate. What was it with these touchy feely people, these...friendly—her mind winced at the word—people trying to cajole her into their company? She bit her tongue to keep from screaming vexation. If she had no interest, she had no interest and felt firmly that that should be enough reason for anyone to leave her in peace.

Of course, Richard Grayson wasn't just anyone and it disturbed her, this thought. Beyond that, what she found more disturbing was that his attempts were less coldly received by her, for all her pretense. She dared in one moment to suppose she even liked the attention and then squashed the idea flat.

How ridiculous. How utterly, absolutely, and also completely ridiculous...

She would never...and even if she did...but...

Raven cut the thought off with a mental knife and scowled the way one scowls at a speck of a problem that just won't go away, a speck that was big enough to see but not big enough to pry off your cotton jacket—or synthetic cloak—and toss casually to one side. She was a little soothed by this train of thought though: a problem. Yes, that's what he was, just a problem and her odd lapse of feeling—was it feeling? She had her doubts—was exactly as she assumed before.

Ridiculous, that's what it was, nothing more or less.

And she told herself as much all the way home that day and throughout most of the night as she swept through the city, cloak fluttering behind her like a shadow of justice. It is likely that it was so similar to a shadow not so much because of how the edges of cloth silhouetted themselves against the moonbeams, but more so because a shadow of justice was all that was left in the ever-dimming light of the gray-blue City of Jump.

---------------------------------

It was late, as always, when she returned to her apartment that night and the message light blinked in red at her as she tossed her cloak onto the small sofa where it slid down onto the floor. She frowned and hit the button.

"Raven, it's Richard, guess you're not there...didn't I say I'd call you at 11?—"

"Sure you did, but my world doesn't revolve around you Mr. Grayson," she scowled at the machine and then had to consciously restrain herself from hitting her head on the wall. Now she was talking to his message like it was him. _Fantastic_, she intoned mentally as she rolled her eyes heavenward, but she listened a little closer as her classmate proceeded to ramble on.

"Never mind. Listen, I was thinking since it's Friday tomorrow you and I could meet after I get off of work and outline our project, or at least get a few ideas. I mean I get off kind of late and—m"

A crackle and the message machine cut him off. She pressed the next button.

"Sorry, I think your machine cut me off—" She rolled her eyes again and thought: good message machine, as if though it were an obedient pet. "—anyways, like I was saying, I get off late, but it's Friday so I thought maybe...yeah, give me a call or...wait, we have class together. Never mind. Haha," She groaned. _He laughs at himself and I talk to his message. Fabulous, _she thought with deeply intensifying sarcasm. "And listen, don't be a stranger. I know you don't like me but we've got to do this so uh, I guess I'll—" It cut him off again. Rubbing her temples, she pressed the next button for her last message and didn't need to guess who it was, but hoped maybe against all odds, it was someone else.

"Uh, sorry again, anyway, I wanted to say have a good night and I'll see you tomorrow...um, bye Rae," and there was a final click. She eyed the message box and whether or not she knew it, her expression softened. 'Rae'? 'Have a good night'?

_That was sweet of him..._

Her mind closed around that thought and choked it as she reverted mutinously to the reaction she was comfortable with: irritation. Only one person was allowed to call her that and again she thought somewhat pained, _what makes him think he can get all familiar like that so soon?_ It was a defense mechanism to protect herself that she was so unreceptive to such harmless things as him calling her by a nickname or inviting her out to afternoon eats with the others, but it was a very well-built one and so it won out most of the time.

She sighed. There was no way she could meet him after work if it was late. Night meant one thing: patrolling the city. Coming up with an excuse for that would be...interesting, she mused and realized that for the second time that day that being late had caused her quite a sizable mess of trouble, all of it dealing with keen blue eyes behind silver frames and a smart mouth.

And just what was she doing thinking about his mouth or his eyes anyway?

Frustrated, she punched the delete button to get rid of any trace of him and headed for the shower. She could feel the streets in her skin still and felt a need for hot water and a heady amount of steam, and while she was at it, maybe she could pointedly scald out her circular train of thought concerning the class representative too.

Not likely, but maybe.

* * *

**Thank you SO, SO much for the great reviews. I'm really glad some people have taken a liking to this story. Thanks to sekai no yakusoku for swapping stories with me to check and edit, and just so you know, I really hope you dabble in the AU area this once too. It's fun. I promise.  
**

**Again, castle thanks all of you who have reviewed and hopes maybe you can do so again, just two words or a word of encouragement is always nice. Take care.**

**-castle in the air**


	4. Chapter 3

You all know I don't own TT...DAMN.

Ah well.

Dedicated to all who review. Thank you so much. It means a lot to me.

But especially thank you to: Gray Dove, The Writer you Fools, Cherry Jade, alena-chan, and sekai no yakusoku

* * *

_Accidental_

_Chapter Three: escape artist_

* * *

"So, why weren't you there last night?" he asked, leaning against the neighboring locker in a casually superior way that made her have to think fast of several really good reasons not to slap him. "Hello?" He did so much as to wave his hand in front of her face like she was some crazed lunatic and she tried to calm herself to keep from carrying out her darkest desire... 

...the very, very slow disembowelment of the stupid man standing next to her, a never-failing smirk exuding from every accent of his expression.

She couldn't hit him; a teacher might see. She couldn't kill him; she'd be expelled even if no one saw, because who else had been seen not getting along with the infallible class rep?

No one but her.

She couldn't do any of that, oh no, and she didn't. Like Gar said a while back, she knew the lines were drawn thickly at the Academy and she wasn't one to cross said lines.

But it was so tempting.

"Rae—————ven," he drawled lazily, dragging her name out needlessly.

Very tempting.

A metal slam resounded through the hall, eliciting a startled yelp from Richard Grayson—which would have been funny if Raven had the patience to pay humor any attention, which she didn't—and several turns of heads from various other students who were—the poor dears—no less startled than the class representative. A few of them even dropped their things—books, bags, binders, and so on.

"I don't think I'm even going to answer that question," Raven replied coolly and clicked the combination lock together with even more force than she'd just used to throw her locker door shut.

Irritated by what she perceived as Richard Grayson's arrogance in his expectance of her to actually be waiting at a goddamned telephone for _him_, Raven stalked off in no small hurry.

Maybe that was why she failed to notice that the lock fell back open.

Richard rolled his eyes—a trait of Raven's he'd picked up already, even if he didn't know it—and was about to call out to the ruffled girl when a thought occurred to him.

His smirk grew, if possible, and once she was completely out of sight, he turned back to her locker.

When he left, the lock was strategically secured...just as Raven Roth thought she had left it.

--------------------------------------------------------------

She'd been blind enough to think herself home free when the stupid charmer didn't follow her and it was Friday which meant the school followed a Day 2 schedule—they did block scheduling at the Academy—and that in turn meant she might be able to get away without seeing dear Richard again until after the weekend.

It was the beginning of lunch and Raven glued her eyes busily to the ground as she made a sightless path to wherever, working her mind around how best to avoid the class rep and his—she glowered at nothing in particular—friendly invitation out tonight. Phone calls she could keep on not being around for, messages from one person telling her to meet Richard at X place at X time she could conveniently pretend to have never gotten... and so on. It might work. She just had to be careful not to—

She ran into something and at first she thought it was a wall, _hoped_ it was a wall.

"Fancy meeting you here," the theoretical wall said and she groaned.

"It's lunch. We're bound to run into each other eventually. It's statistical," she replied dolefully and pushed past him. Richard held back a laugh and followed.

"Mind if I join you? I thought we could talk about our—" But he never finished.

"Oh Richard, there you are!"

_Yes_! Raven briefly acknowledged the possibility of a God existing and turned to face the source of her temporary salvation: Kori Anders. She'd never been so happy to see the bright redhead in all the time she'd known of the pretty girl and now she took advantage of her presence by practically shoving Richard in her general direction.

"Kori," she greeted with a forced smile; the thing with Raven was if she was happy, she was happy, but she never really felt like smiling, so if she ever did it always tended to be forced—the variants on _how_ forced were the separating features.

"Raven," green eyes smiled cheerfully at the shorter girl and Raven did her best to steer the conversation in the right direction.

"So you wanted to speak to Richard?" Raven asked pointedly.

"Yes, Richard, I wondered if perhaps you would like to have lunch with me?" Star asked and then added politely, "Unless you are already having lunch with friend Raven?" Her brow knit ever so slightly here, but it was so slight, no one noticed...except Raven, who understood what it meant.

"No, he's not," Raven answered for him shortly. "Have fun you two!" she tossed them one last forced smile before heading quickly in any direction that could be defined as 'away'.

She did not turn around and so she missed the look of confusion that made its way across Richard's face, the look of confusion mingled with what one might also assess to be frustration.

But one couldn't be sure and Raven didn't see, so it was like it never happened at all.

For her part, Raven had begun to make up excuses in her head about not seeing Richard after work tonight when she, undoubtedly, would be out jumping rooftops. Shortly she considered telling him as much but sacked the notion almost immediately.

He was just the type to take that kind of comment seriously, she imagined unhappily.

She spent the rest of her day thinking up excuses, each one more unlikely than the next, and eventually gave up because she found something especially vexing about a person who could get under her skin without even being within a walking proximity of her.

Well, more specifically, Raven found something especially vexing about the much-beloved class representative and his...well, his everything.

_Him and his damn blue eyes behind those pseudo-intellectual silver frames. Him and his stupid, silken-looking black hair. Him and his eternally smug mouth._

_Yep, him and his stupid, ridiculous, arrogant, incorrigible...everything. _

_...why am I thinking about this!_

All this she thought with a murderous flare, and the scowl she wore for the remainder of the day was notably disparaging...even more so than usual.

--------------------------------------------------------------

The final bell rang and so far he hadn't been able to find her since lunch. That was when the friendly Kori Anders had sweetly, but somewhat forcibly led him away to have lunch with her—or more pointedly, Richard thought: not with Raven. He knew when a girl liked him; it'd been painfully obvious for years and eventually he learned to pretend to be blissfully ignorant of it. This was a lie and sometimes it didn't go so smoothly as he wanted but it was a nice alternative to the outright: I'm not interested, please leave me alone.

Richard didn't want to hurt anyone after all.

On the other hand he was beginning to have more and more interest in the resident recluse of the Academy and as that interest grew—even on this day alone—he suspected more and more that he ought to say something.

Ought to _do_ something.

But whenever he tried to get a moment with her on the phone or between classes or in the morning at the lockers and so on, she managed to slip away.

At first he'd chalked it up to bad timing.

But no one was that lucky and soon he realized she'd been purposefully steering clear of him and that on those chance occasions when she did bump into him, she found a backdoor and slipped out of it with noticeable speed.

_She's a ridiculously achieved escape artist_, Richard thought dourly.

But _why_, he wondered. He knew they'd agreed to work together at least for the project and maybe she thought it wasn't imperative for them to start now, and in a way she was right.

He wanted to start early because the earlier they started, the more time he, Richard Grayson, would get to spend with one Raven Roth.

Except that she seemed Hell-bent on avoiding such extended get-togethers.

And it was through this simple series of events that Richard determined that he was not a very patient man, so he kept a watchful eye out for her, two if he could spare the other from someone talking to him or the teacher lecturing or the oncoming traffic rush between 4th and 6th period.

All to no avail, and his patience, if possible, thinned even further.

"Where are you?" he muttered as he walked the halls, a muted sense of where he was surrounding him, blocking out his usually keen peripheral vision.

Maybe that was why Garfield Logan snuck up on him so easily.

"Who is 'Yu'?" a familiar voice asked, amused. Richard jumped. "Whoa, calm down dude. It's just me." Green eyes laughed at him and Richard frowned.

"Not 'Yu', 'you', y-o-u, and I was talking about..." he trailed off. "A friend," he finished lamely and at this Garfield shot him an unabashed smirk.

"A certain anti-social, super-smart 'friend' maybe?" Gar inquired none too subtly and Richard's frown turned to a scowl.

"And what of it?" he asked, beginning to walk away. That too was fruitless; Logan only proceeded to follow.

"What's eating you?" he remarked, more interested than offended. Most people at the Academy said Garfield Logan was really quite beyond being offended at all. "Sorry I freaked you out, back there," he added and this won him some forgiveness as Richard slowed his pace so that the jokester could fall into stride beside him.

"No problem. I'm sorry, but my 'anti-social, super-smart'," _ridiculously attractive_, his mind threw in but he continued instead with, "_friend_ as you put it, keeps running away from me." At this, Gar looked his most genuine: baffled.

"Running away...from you?" he asked and Richard was somewhat offended again but brushed it off in hopes of learning a little more about the dark bird from the class clown.

"Yes, from me," he answered shortly. Gar's laughter subsided after a time period that was much too long for Richard, but subside it did and when it did, the shorter man shook his head.

"Man, that's weird. Are you sure it's Raven? She doesn't 'run' from anything," he said and companion blue eyes clicked away with a thousand questions, but settled for one at a time.

"I'm sure and maybe 'running away' was the wrong phrase. It's more like avoiding me, and before you say anything, I know. She doesn't like people. I got that, but it's seriously more like she's singled me out as the sole carrier of the plague and is doing everything to avoid getting it," Richard clarified and Gar nodded thoughtfully.

"Maybe you ask too many questions," he said and Richard barely kept from doing a double-take. This character seemed far more likely the type to ask a dozen needless questions than he would. Gar read as much in his expression and explained, "I know Rae through Vic, you know, Victor Stone. We've known each other for a while and let's say I know how much asking I can get away with before she rips my front teeth out." This was all said very matter-of-fact and Richard had to take a second to store it all away as was his habit.

_So they know each other pretty well, those three. _Richard made a mental note of this without missing a beat: "Too many questions? She has something to hide?" Richard joked and tilted his head to one side at the oddly apprehensive look that came over his peer.

The heavy, worried expression seemed out of place.

"I don't _think_ so," Gar said after a terribly awkward silence and Richard couldn't help but probe.

"You don't sound like you believe that anymore than I do," he challenged and Gar sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Look Rich, I don't know. She's got..._secrets_ though and not one of us knows enough about her to know whether or not they're the kind of secrets that are best kept. So let's just say Vic and I worry about her. Don't tell her either. She'll kill me." He managed to inject a fair amount of a jocular tone in the last sentence and Richard nodded inattentively, willing to settle for that for now.

He had at least, a little more of an answer.

"Well, thanks," Richard said and parted ways with Gar. It was the end of the day which meant he had work, but first he wanted to stop by his locker. He took his time, unlocking the combination and picking out the folders and files he needed, glancing over his shoulder from time to time, keeping his eye out for a certain someone.

A smirk crept across his handsome features.

It was probably about now that she would be opening her locker to find...

There was a resounding crash as his books went scattering from his arms where he'd carefully begun to pile them and his locker door swung angrily with the smack it had received from a petite frame with heliotrope hair.

"YOU!" she raged and Richard Grayson jumped back for the second time that day, facing two fiery eyes of liquid amethyst.

"Hey there Raven," he smiled innocently.

"Where is _it_?" she asked...well, it was more of a demand.

"Where is _what_?" he looked away. She slammed her hands against his locker door, sending the lock sprawling across the hall.

"My books, the ones I _need_ for Day 1, where _are_ they?" Raven Roth barely contained her voice and even still drew half the attentions in the school's crowded corridor.

"Why would you need those? Today's a Day 2," he continued to not meet her gaze as he answered her and this irked Raven just so that she didn't even think as she grasped his chin between her thumb and index finger. Doing this, she made him face her. It didn't help that he was a good deal taller than her, but she wasn't a secret vigilante for nothing and her strength surprised Richard, even as he also partially let himself be turned.

It wasn't an undesirable position in his humble opinion and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling the smile that would surely make her withdraw her hand.

"You know we start on a Day 1! I need those books to do my work. Where are they?" she glared her patented death-glare but Richard was unfazed except maybe by how interestingly the light seemed to reflect in her swirling irises. Those he was maybe entirely fazed by and he thought, not for the first time that day: _I am so done with you avoiding me. _

"What makes you think _I_ have them?" he goaded and she drew him down closer, unaware of how strange her actions looked to the bystanders, of which there was an increasingly growing number whispering and gasping around them.

But neither seemed to notice, so wrapped up in each other, if for entirely different reasons.

"I _know_," she replied, voice dropping from displeased to livid as she lost the last grips on her own patience, done with being fooled with.

And now Richard smiled.

"Want them back?" he asked cheerfully.

"You _will_ return _my_ things," she replied, ignoring his question, driven on by his infuriatingly unbothered tone.

"I want something in exchange," he said all too harmlessly.

And Raven didn't trust him for a second but she had little choice...other than murder. It occurred to her that that was the second time that day she'd envisioned a rather colorful death for her taller peer and that it was no more doable this second time than the first.

Internally, she sighed with blind surrender

Outwardly, her eyes narrowed with heated resignation.

"Well then, what is it you want then, _Dick_?" she asked, her voice now so sugar-sweet that very briefly 'Dick' rethought his plan of action...but it was briefly and so it passed as he made good on his request.

"Payment of course," he said and closed the gap between them that Raven had, until that moment, failed to notice was very small indeed.

And all because of her.

Had she actually wanted this?

You were thinking about his eyes...his mouth...his hair...you _were_ thinking about _him_...her mind teased her mercilessly as she felt him cradle her head with one of his hands, pulling her even more into the kiss.

_I'm an idiot_, she thought. And then more exasperatedly: _an idiot like him!_

But she didn't pull away and while later she might find that to be a mistake, at that moment, for once Raven Roth found herself confronted with something she could not have possibly planned an escape for.

And so, she didn't.

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Thank you for all the reviews. I appreciate you taking the time to tell me what you all think. 

That said, keep telling me your thoughts please, if you don't mind.

-Rei


	5. Chapter 4

Please review if you have time and yeah, I'm surprised this chapter's out already too...who saw that one coming?

Dedicated to all who have been so kind as to read, and especially to those who have both read and reviewed supportively for me as requested...

But especially, ESPECIALLY, for: sekai no yakusoku, The Writer you Fools, Gray Dove, alena-chan and Cherry Jade

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_Accidental_

_Chapter Four: daytime drama_

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_Stop! Stop! Stop **you fool!**_ Her mind relatively screeched at her.

But for some reason she was finding it unusually difficult to pull herself away from the pressure of Richard Grayson's lips on hers. It mattered little though because he broke away from her shortly, both in need of air and he flashed a grin as he said, "I'm more than willing to take daily installments."

Okay, that did it.

Raven pushed at his chest to get him away but he'd somehow managed to loop his arms about her in a rather inhibiting fashion.

This realization only caused her to squirm more of course as she felt the after-effects of the very passionate, very spontaneous, very unexpected lip-lock: flustered was a word that could go here...that and pissed...really pissed.

Whispers crashed down around her and she took a quick peripheral scope of the ridiculously thick audience around them.

Make that flustered, pissed and embarrassed beyond all reason.

She felt his lips begin to press against her own again and withdrew...just slightly.

If he wanted to play, then play they would.

And Raven didn't like to lose.

"Dick," she paused, and he kept on grinning that damn stupid grin of his as he persisted in leaning down yet again, lips almost brushing hers again.

Damn tease, she intoned mentally.

"Yes, Raven?" he intoned, almost conspiratorially.

She graced him with a smile that should have warned him of her intent before she said more loudly, "First: screw you."

And she pushed _really_ hard this time with far better results.

He fell from the unexpected force—Raven thanked her training and other life as a vigilante for the strength—but his expression never wavered from bemused, to dear Raven's chagrin.

And the silence?

That was slightly marred by girlish gasps and things being dropped.

Raven rubbed the bridge of her nose as one might do with a particularly unpleasant headache, not failing to note the increasingly soap-opera reminiscent quality of this entire ridiculous fiasco.

Her peers, it seemed, were on key with that too.

The show just keeps getting better!—thought the students around the class representative and his final project partner.

That…that _jerk_ just won't take a hint...—thought the Raven as young Richard scrambled to his feet in a way that some part of his fuming counterpart admitted was boyishly charming.

This girl is just a riot...a beautiful riot...—thought the class representative as he dusted his hands off on his slacks, lips not curving down for a second.

"I want my things," she said to him as if nothing had happened.

"I still want payment," he said as if conducting an everyday business transaction.

"You already...exacted that," she bit out forcibly.

"Just an advance paycheck," he dismissed the kiss with a wave of his hand.

She slapped him.

More gasps...but no more things dropped. (Everyone who _had_ had something to drop had already dropped it around the midpoint of their kiss or the culminating result of Richard being floored.)

Raven spared him one more glower before she began to march stolidly away.

He followed, the first sign of worry that he'd maybe taken things a little too lightly, a little too far, a little too publicly seeping onto Richard Grayson's face as he just made it through the school's front doors right after the disconcerted girl.

"Raven, wait!" he called, standing on the steps.

"For what, Dick?" she asked, not turning to meet his gaze but stopping in her angry escape.

"Please don't call me that," he groaned.

"Fine, Mr. Grayson then," she said icily and he sighed.

Definitely too lightly, too far, too publicly...but damn...she could kiss...

Her footsteps snapped him back to reality.

"I'm sorry; I just...you were avoiding me! And you left your locker open and it seemed like a harmless way to finally get your attention, not that you'd give it to me anyway and—"

"Get my attention?" Raven had stopped walking again and asked this question now, in spite of all her insistence on loving solitude and despising the mere idea of extended human contact. In spite of it...and maybe a little because of it.

"Yeah," he said lamely. She turned.

"Why does it matter to you so much?" And now she was suspicious because her nature could not help it.

"Because," he paused as one might pause before taking a blind plunge into a pool with no visible bottom. "Because you're my partner for the project," he faltered at the look in her eyes but then steeled himself. Richard Grayson wasn't near perfect for nothing after all and he finished as grandly as a high-school student experiencing the grips of what some might call first love could, "...and because I like you."

Credit given, Raven did not express any sign of care or compassion or character break at this confession. Credit given, she did in fact feel something inside in response: wonder, confusion, and something like joy. Credit given, she met his stare now, full on.

"You," she divided each word carefully, as though translating a foreign language, "like," she pointed too, finger switching directions at appropriate times, "me?" She finished. He nodded. "I knew you were an idiot," she said after he said nothing in response to her question aloud and he had the good spirit to laugh at this.

It was so very like her to say something like that and she didn't know it but it gave away a lot more about her personality to Richard than she would have liked. Her phrasing told him she was insecure, for all her tough exterior; it told him she scarcely believed him and only by the bare threads of being unable to deny pure honesty; and it told him somehow, somewhere in that well guarded heart of hers, she might like him too.

He hopped down the steps and Raven had the fleeting image of a puppy dog doing the same thing.

"An idiot who knows what he wants," he corrected her as he closed the distance and crossed his arms across his chest in a loose manner, not defensively like hers were, but lighter and just a tad mocking. She scowled and uncrossed her arms. "I am sorry though; it wasn't planned, the kiss," he admitted sheepishly and something inside Raven felt distinctly dismayed at this, but held her peace. Some parts of her, even Raven wasn't ready to come to terms with yet.

"I believe you," was her automatic response, dry and cynical as always. He arched a brow.

"So bad, then?" he queried cheekily, drawing a lazy finger down the side of her cheek like a lover might. He noted that she did not flinch away even as her stare darkened.

"I didn't say that." It was the truth, if a terribly reluctant one.

"Well then," he smirked.

"Don't get cocky...oh wait...guess it's too late for that one," Raven said, resigned.

"Go out with me," he said and she sputtered.

"What? Me? You? Out? Go? You and me go out? Like..." she tried to move her mouth around the word with a garbled and dissatisfied success, "...dating?"

He tried to contain his mirth at her reaction. She hadn't said yes yet after all.

"Yes, you, go out, with me," he said gently and cupped her face. "I want to." And he took the pivotal moment to lock eyes with her for a few genuine seconds of emotion, so she could see he was not being a manipulative adolescent bastard or the like, that he really just wanted a chance, and asked, "Don't you?"

To her muted horror, Raven felt herself nod and she had the brief realization of how much harder it was going to be to keep her secret from the wily rep now that he'd somehow snared her—she'd never be able to bring herself to analyze how, since it got under her skin so very much.

She would have thought longer on the problematic situation fleshing itself out before her too.

But such thinking would have to wait.

"Dude!" Garfield Logan barreled out the school's front doors, Victor Stone on his heels.

"'Dude' what?" Raven asked blandly.

"Someone just told me you," he gestured wildly at Richard, "and you," he gestured even more wildly at Raven, "you know!" He flung his arms around now in something beyond a wild manner and Richard laughed and Raven groaned, grouchy again at the prospect of explaining such a thing.

But she had a good answer for it anyway.

"So?" she challenged, frostbite threatening Gar at the very well punctuated question mark's notation. He made an 'eep' noise and shrugged nervously. Richard noted in vague admiration that the young jokester hadn't lied; he did know when to quit.

"Rae," Victor greeted, acting diplomatically as if a certain current event had not even happened, much less been brought up, and Raven threw him a grateful smile.

Richard's breath caught.

Now, he wasn't the mamsy pamsy type, not the flouncy romantic type or even the roguish romantic type a lot of his female admirers painted him into being.

But Raven's smile made him reconsider his nonexistent status as such.

This wasn't the wry twist of her lips or the sarcastic 'I know so much more than you do' smirk or even the grudging 'I give up, but only for now' upward turn. This was a real smile and while not all smiles were beautiful, Richard admitted that Raven's quite actually was.

And that was the first indication of something in his heart that stirred in larger strokes than mere 'like' would, but he didn't know it enough to recognize it for what it was, so he chalked it up to pure wonder.

"Vic," she returned and the bigger man stepped down to stand nearer to the two.

"What are you up to?" he asked casually.

"Homework," she responded immediately. It was always her answer.

"I see," Victor said and remembered well that this was always her answer but did not mention it.

"And what about you, Rich?" Gar clapped him on the back in a way that suggested he'd won something or other and this puzzled Richard until the shorter man said in low tones only he could hear: "Don't know how you did it, but congrats. She may be an ice queen but our Rae's a looker, no doubt about it!" And just as quick as the remark was made, Logan was standing upright and babbling about going to the arcade with amazing verbal speed.

Raven, for actual care of the sometimes intolerable Garfield, did her best to listen—if with no greatly disguised look of suffering.

"Hurt her and I'll break you like a toothpick," Victor said calmly, standing next to Richard. Richard did well enough to keep from losing his composure and simply nodded.

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Thoughts? Reviews? Comments?

Haha...I need sleep...

Anyway, sorry about 'Waste Not, Want Not'...I really am at a positively stupendous road-block with that story. Of course there's the problem that I didn't take it seriously when I first started it, kind of thinking it was just a way for me to feed my own theories on what-ifs, not knowing others would be interested too!

IT WILL BE FINISHED...just not that soon I think...unless fate makes a hypocrite out of me like she so enjoys doing and then it'll be out in an hour of course.

Stupid fate.

-that castle in the air


	6. Chapter 5

Dedicated to all who have been so kind as to read, and especially to those who have both read and reviewed supportively for me as requested...

But especially, ESPECIALLY, for: **sekai no yakusoku**, **The Writer you Fools**, **Gray Dove**, **alena-chan** and **Cherry Jade**

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_Accidental_

_Chapter Five: not yet_

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The news spread fast.

And for once it had nothing to do with her nighttime gestures of heroism.

For once it had nothing to do with 'Arella' or 'Nightwing' or the like.

For once.

Oh no.

She should be so lucky..._ha!_

Raven ducked away from the unabashed stares of nearly every student at The Academy as she walked in the next morning. She wondered if someone had taken the generous liberty of not only being present during the unplanned lip-lock but perhaps recording it too, and broadcasting it school wide.

It was the only way she could fathom so many people knowing already.

Well, that wasn't entirely true.

Raven knew the fleetness of word of mouth well enough...it had just never applied to her life before so she'd easily set it aside as a passably acceptable part of human behavior.

Now she found herself seriously reconsidering.

"Hey Roth, you put a spell on the class rep?"

Seriously.

"I don't put spells on people," she paused as she eyed the speaker, her irises tinged with ice and fire all at once. And as the person looked about to respond to her claim, she finished shortly, "I curse them."

A withering glower added the perfect finishing touch to that rejoinder before she stalked coldly away.

It was a convincing way of silencing people Raven categorized as exceptionally stupid—luckily there were not many.

The rest of the way to her locker was relatively uneventful. An occasional wolf whistle followed by exclamations of disbelief and so on was heard, but only vaguely as she brushed them off like bits of laundry lint.

They were hardly as significant.

And on getting to it, Raven felt the icebreaker of the day was done, but a flash of red out of her peripheral vision made her groan as she realized her hope had come too soon.

"Raven," Kori greeted with a half-smile.

"Kori," Raven returned the greeting, minus the smile. A glance at the clock nearly rendered a more cynical twist of her lips as she realized it was hardly 7:25 in the morning and she was already beyond any kind of pleasantry.

"Is it true you and Richard Grayson have begun to date?" Kori asked and Raven was surprised in spite of herself. As far back as she could remember, she couldn't bring to mind a time when the beautiful peer was so...blunt.

"I don't know if you'd call it that exactly," Raven felt her resolve crumbling beneath her feet and it sounded largely in her ears like scratching sandpaper. She opened her locker and busily began sorting her things for the day, careful not to look at Kori.

"Truly, Raven, I merely wish to know the truth," Kori persisted. Raven sighed.

Since when do you sigh so much, hm? Some part of her mind snickered at her and a part of that part of her mind did a horribly accurate impression of a 'giggle'.

Raven slammed one of her books down, hard. Kori jumped.

"Yes," she said at last and Kori nodded.

"I see," she said. Raven was glad. She didn't think she could take having to expound any further on the subject. "And you have feelings for...for Richard?" Kori asked now, dashing Raven's hopes of a near-painless escape. She turned to face green eyes, doing her best not to inhale to obviously—a sure sign she was already fed up—and trying to remember it wasn't Kori's fault that Richard was a conniving lunatic with strange taste in women.

Briefly, Raven only now noticed she thought of herself as 'strange', but it was passing because a distraction happened along, as usual.

"Morning ladies," the man of the hour said with a smile Raven felt like damning him for. _That's why they all like you, you moron! You flash that megawatt grin of yours that makes the Cheshire cat look sour and they all just melt, _she thought, irritated with him all over again. A sideways glance at Kori confirmed her thoughts; the girl was all blushes.

"Good morning, Richard," Kori replied with a smile much brighter than the one she'd fifty percent offered to Raven moments earlier. He nodded at her genially but then turned his full attention onto the noticeably silent bookworm, her head now pointedly buried somewhere in the pile of stuff that was the contents of her disorganized locker.

"Uh, Raven?" He poked her in the side, affectionately, jokingly even. Raven jumped, hitting her head on some books piled on the side of the locker and some things went scattering. She exhaled roughly, put out by her own skittish reaction and Richard's tendency to incite said skittishness, as she gathered the fallen items. Richard, of course, stooped to help. "Morning," he said again and Kori, realizing his eyes were not about to leave the mysterious Raven Roth any time soon, left quietly enough for Richard to almost not notice and to barely wave as she did so.

"Why don't you go out with _her_?" Raven asked unhappily, her locker now even more out of sorts than before as she did her best to stuff what had fallen out back in, with little success. "Sure save me some grief," she muttered, not intending for him to hear.

"I won't just drop you after our first date or anything, Rae," Richard said, jumping to conclusions and Raven bit back a dry laugh. That hadn't been what she was thinking at all and she found herself at a crossroads as to whether that was because she actually believed they could work together or because she was very much a pragmatic sort of girl.

_If only it were so simple_, her thoughts resounded, half-mocking, half-amused.

"I know," she said and still would not look directly at him. Richard sighed. Was this how she intended to act in front of him? He thought she might be even colder now than before; before at least she had been cynically sociable...now she just seemed to be taking entirely evasive measures.

Just what was she so afraid of? He wondered.

"What are you so afraid of?" he asked and was pleased to get more of a reaction this time.

"I don't _do_ fear, pretty boy," Raven said, a defensive menace lacing her tone. Richard's smile widened just the slightest bit.

"Then why won't you look at me?" he challenged, not missing a beat.

She looked.

He looked back.

And for a moment, he and she—Richard Grayson and Raven Roth—really looked at each other, stripped temporarily of guards and bravado, of biting repartee and secretive laughter.

And it was an accident of course, just an accident, but in that moment Richard thought he saw the whole Raven—fear, loss, pain, hope, dreams and all—and Raven found herself thinking much the same thing about the handsome class rep.

And then it was over.

"Happy?" she intoned in a way that said she definitely was not, breaking the spell.

"Very," he replied cheekily and she groaned. He made as if to wave to someone over her shoulder and Raven turned her face slightly to get a glimpse of to whom Richard was dividing his attentions. She found no one and at first was confused.

Then she felt the soft, warm pressure of his lips against her cheek and she understood. A chaste kiss that maybe should have been their first, but Raven was secretly glad it was their second—it had a sweetness to it, an almost innocent nature.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd thought something was innocent and found she could not fault Richard for his actions. All the same, Raven was Raven, and Raven wasn't the type to simper and so on.

Instead...

"_That_ was sneaky," she said but all the cheerlessness had gone from her voice and Richard suspected her eyes of dancing a little more than usual. "You're a thief too. I didn't give you permission to take that."

"I am a Jack of all trades though, miss. I must keep all my abilities up to speed," Richard smirked and Raven arched a brow thoughtfully.

"Oh you're a Jack of something alright..." she countered and let the rest of the statement hang between them.

"You can't back out now. You already told me yes," Richard reminded her and Raven rolled her eyes.

"You're a dope," she said and closed the lock on her locker with extra care this time—Richard had returned her books that past Friday afternoon when she gave him a positive answer. At which point Raven had also made up a dozen feasibly, if somewhat sketchy reasons for not being able to see him at all that weekend including that Friday night and so she'd gone the rest of Friday and the weekend, Richard-less.

At one point in the early hours of a Sunday morning, standing atop a part of a cathedral in the city, cape billowing about her, she'd chanced on a thought of how blue his eyes were—not for the first time—and then she'd realized she actually missed him. But now, standing less than a couple feet away from Richard, she had a hard time dealing with that truth, but deal with it she did, in more or less words.

"What do you mean, 'dope'?" he asked, feigning hurt.

"You're a dope," was all she said again but graced him with a very small, very honest smile.

"Can I see you tonight?" he asked, his stride easily overtaking hers to a point of her taking three steps to every one of his until he noticed and subtly adjusted his pace to accommodate her.

Sure she was fast; metropolitan vigilantes had to be. If there was a list of requirements for heroes—and there wasn't, but Raven felt it was pretty generally understood—then swiftness would probably be somewhere in the top ten.

But in the day hours she was just Raven Roth and Raven Roth was a student who didn't like physical exertion of any kind—walking or crew, it didn't matter. It wasn't her thing. So she took smaller, more separated steps...like the sheltered literati she was made out to be here.

"I have—"

"—homework, I know," he finished blandly.

She nodded pointedly. Richard crossed his arms.

"So?" she prompted.

"So I guess your grades will have to suffer. I want to take you somewhere," he said, stubborn as her and twice as vexing with it—that damned smile never left his face.

"I could say _no_," Raven said wryly.

"But I won't take _no_ for an answer," Richard said, lightly mocking her emphasis on the negation, and she closed her eyes.

"Why are you so absurdly impossible?" she asked.

"Only the impossible ones can do impossible things," Richard said simply and it occurred to Raven that he was insinuating that she was just as impossible as he was.

She sighed. Maybe he had something there.

"...fine." _What are you saying?_ Her mind whirled. _You have no time for this! And what if he finds out? You idiot...idiot, idiot, IDIOT! _She did her best to tune out from herself and into pleasant blue eyes behind silver frames.

"After school. I took work off," he said and Raven's self-reprimanding ceased wholly as she felt her feelings soften a bit.

He'd taken off work..._for her._

"How did you know I'd agree?" she asked.

"I didn't plan on letting you go to class unless you did," he grinned and as if on cue, the bell rang for first hour.

They shared an almost conspiratorial glance before Raven turned away.

"Come on boy blunder, we'll be late," she called over her shoulder as she walked speedily in the direction of their class. Eyes alight, Richard followed. Things we're going as he'd planned, even Raven's agreement to accompany him after school.

Of course, you know what they say about the best laid plans.

And so did Richard.

He just didn't take it into account when making his. And it should be noted that if Richard Grayson had known that Raven Roth was one and the same as his savior from a bygone night who called herself 'Arella', he might've reworked said plans...not reconsidered, just reworked. A superhero being your girlfriend was a factor of reasonable significance, after all.

But he didn't know.

Not yet, anyway.

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Reviews/comments? Please leave some, thanks for waiting for the chapter! 


	7. Chapter 6

Dedicated to **The Writer you Fools**, **Alena-chan**, **Cherry Jade**, **Gray Dove**, and **sekai no yakusoku**

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_Accidental_

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Chapter Six: For what?_

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The day passed in a flurry of activities, what with the Academy's annual Gala needing to be organized and funded and other clubs doing an array of activities lately. After their one class together, neither Raven nor Richard saw the other until the end of the day where they reconvened at her locker. 

"How was your day?" he asked her and she couldn't decide if she wanted to laugh at the pleasantry or simply be pleased by it, as the root suggested. It was nice that he cared, she admitted to herself however reluctantly.

"Fine," she said and then thinking it only fair to return the favor, "Yours?"

Richard did laugh.

"For a potential literature major you certainly have a thing for monosyllabic exchanges," he teased and his smile was nothing short of charming.

"So where are we going?" she asked through her teeth. She hadn't yet thought of a decent excuse to cut the night short, and to her chagrin she found she didn't really want to. What was happening to her? Then with a barely restrained pout and scowl, she thought more pointedly: what was _he_ doing to her?

_The city will be fine for a night. It's been quiet. _This is what part of her told herself, the part that felt unduly weak when the class representative put his hand on her shoulder or kissed her cheek.

_Everything will be fine._

And she wanted to believe that. She really did.

But a flash of her mother, lifeless and her helpless to stop it cut through her persuasion and Raven was cold as she walked next to Richard, settled once more on at least one thing: she'd have to get away _somehow_.

"...Raven?" Richard stared at her worriedly as they walked. She hadn't shown any indication of response in the last five minutes, dully staring at empty space. And not for the first time he wondered what made her look so lost.

"Huh?" she said, looking up suddenly and felt very stupid with that utterance. What was she, five? She did her best to regain her easy expression of nothing in particular and said, "What did you say?"

"Are you alright?" he asked again, blue eyes trying to read further than Raven wanted him to be able to read. She averted her gaze to break the connection, getting the distinctly unsettling notion that he could see her lies and cover-ups if he was allowed to keep eye-contact with her for too long.

"Yes," she lied and he knew it but did not press the matter. Maybe waiting would pay off. "So where are we going?" she asked, forgetting her earlier inquiry.

"I already told you," Richard said, sounding offended, only teasing.

"I'm sorry," Raven apologized. "I do not know where my head is today," she said wryly and Richard was surprised in spite of himself. Her 'sorry' was not only unexpected but...well...it was kind. And it wasn't that he'd thought her incapable of kindness but he certainly hadn't foreseen her walls coming down so generously that morning.

"Don't think about it," he told her simply and offered to carry her books.

"How Beaver Cleaver of you," she remarked and he shrugged.

"I'm trying to prove everyone who thinks chivalry is dead, wrong," he proclaimed grandly and Raven felt her lips curve upward, just slightly.

"I see," she said but did not let him carry her books. The very thought was laughable and her smile wasn't all for Richard's melodrama but partly for the remembrance of her rescuing him some nights ago only to have him offer to unburden her of something so frivolous as schoolbooks.

_The world works in strange ways_, she mused and prodded him into disclosing their destination to her, again.

------------------------------------------------------

"I'm going to kill you, Grayson. Get your hands off me."

_What on earth possessed me to agree to this?_ Raven could only wonder as Richard smiled disarmingly at her as he kept his hands gently but definitely over her eyes, making sure she couldn't see a thing.

"But it'll ruin the surprise if you look too soon," he argued.

"I hate surprises. Remember?" she grumbled, unenthused.

"I think you'll like this one. Now no more arguing out of you Ms. Roth; I took off work for you and you alone, remember?" he held it over her head like a guillotine blade, she thought mutinously but allowed him to lead her further. Her senses heightened automatically with the loss of sight and Raven dully noticed the echoes her steps made as she, presumably, climbed a set of stairs. She soon lost count of how many turns and how many steps.

"Are we there yet?" she asked, serious, but in a tone so childish it could not be taken for anything but what, for Raven, was a display of pointless silliness.

"Nearly," Richard said, grinning ear-to-ear as he opened the door at the top of the stairs and led her outside. Raven could hear the rustling wind funnel through the buildings and the cars zooming and honking and suddenly she knew exactly where she was, sight or no sight.

She'd been here before, many times. She'd need to be dead to not recognize it, and even then...

"Okay, open your eyes," Richard instructed eagerly and she did so. "Isn't it great?" he asked and she nodded as she knew he expected her to.

No, that wasn't fair...as she knew he _hoped_ she would.

The city stretched below them as far as the edge where the docks began and the bay led out to the sea, eventually. And it was great, Raven had to admit. It wasn't often she'd come here during hours that still had daylight and the way the sun speckled in crystal-caramel shades made the city seem almost peaceful...almost happy.

And for the first time, her heart lurched at the thought of the impending night.

"Raven? Something wrong?" Richard's concerned voice broke her out of her reverie and Raven shook her head.

"No," she lied and felt his considering gaze weigh on her. Watching her, he adjusted his glasses, eyeing her with the usual interest laced now with concern, trying not to be too calculating but driven on by his own curiosity.

Evening was edging in now, the red-gold of sunset making a strange bridge between fall and winter as a gust of wind funneled around them and Raven drew her arms around her absently.

Ever the gentleman, Richard's coat settled over her shoulders seconds later and she glanced at him, grateful but also feeling rather silly.

She wasn't used to being taken care of.

"Aren't you cold?" she asked and Richard shrugged, tossing her a disarming smile, blue eyes charming as ever as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and the tails of his white shirt flapped in the breeze.

"Nah," he grinned and she shook her head but oddly enough, did not protest.

Dusk now, the sky was an eerie purple-red with early stars, spread like pieces of sugar between the clouds, blinking in and out. And Richard watched Raven thoughtfully. He knew she was lying to him. Something was wrong.

But why wouldn't she say?

Brow furrowing as he concentrated on the dark beauty, it erased with a soft smile as she tucked a renegade strand of hair behind her ear only to have the wind whip it back out into her face and she scowled. She was very different...from any girl he'd ever met to be sure...maybe from any person...so mysterious.

And Richard had always had a thing for mysteries.

Nighttime in full swing, Raven had become noticeably more shifty, looking down at the city—Richard was intrigued and confused to see—as if she was searching for someone, watching for something...as if she was worried...

Worried?

But then she turned to face him and many of those thoughts melted in favor of a thought he'd never had before meeting her: how beautiful.

Certainly many 'beautiful' girls had approached him—Kori Anders not the least among them—but he himself had never been so struck with any one of them as he now felt with R. Roth. And some part of him felt foolish.

From not feeling at all for so long, could he be feeling too much, too fast now?

"Richard?" her voice entered his mind and brought him back to her in body as he took in her otherworldly kind of loveliness, moonlit and curious. Not answering her quite, he stepped for ward and when she reached out a hand to wave in front of him mockingly like he had done to her not long ago, he grasped it in his, drawing his head down to hers.

Faces less than an inch apart, he whispered, "Yes?" And then without waiting for an answer, he closed the distance. Like the first kiss in passion, this one had the affection of the second, and now something else, something that could only be described as in what two people may feel when he and she are alone in the world, and don't give a damn.

Raven responded with equal fervor, hands tangling in Richard's hair as she wrapped her arms around his neck, discarding her fears, yielding to the attraction she felt safer with admitting in the night. Pleased that she did not push him away, Richard broke away from her lips only to trail kisses down her throat, one hand caressing her arm and the other her back, determined to—he was surprised to find—prove himself.

There was something enchantingly unattainable, something frighteningly unknown about Raven, that kind of something that said 'here I am, but come tomorrow, I might not be'.

Something temporary.

He didn't want it to be temporary.

Raven for her part was disconcerted by how intense the feelings her peer incited were, eyes closing as she felt his lips suckle at the base of her throat and she tried to bite back any sound, to no avail as a soft moan escaped her.

She thought she felt him smile against her skin.

And then his lips were back on hers and so engrossed, both stumbled and Richard guided Raven to recline against the edge of the roof, the rail providing a backing.

But the kiss did not break and Raven had the brief and wry thought of: this is much more interesting than most of the nights I've spent up here.

"Rae?" his breath was attractively uneven, and his blue eyes sparkled like fire, gazing down at her.

"Dick," she returned, flashing him the brightest smile he'd seen yet, and he laughed in spite of the moment's passion. This was the girl he'd been waiting for, been saying no to all the others for. This was her, Raven, unpredictable and somewhat enigmatic.

Somewhere in that melee of thoughts, he decided she should be with him.

"You alright?" he asked and her tapered fingers traced his jaw sensuously, eliciting a shudder as she drew him down for another kiss in which he read her answer 'yes'. Hands caressing and lips leaving what Raven felt could be nothing short of sinful trails across the nape of her neck, across her closed eyes and back to her mouth, the rest of the world seemed to fade away as Raven got lost in all of that and Richard was already far lost in all of her.

A siren blared and honed to a T, Raven's eyes snapped to alertness and she went to stand, but Richard was practically on top of her so that didn't really happen as much as her stumbling over him and landing on top of him.

"Jumpy?" he inquired, not understanding, and some of Raven's earlier discontent returned. Of course he would not understand. How could he?

She could never tell him.

"I-I have to go," she shook her head apologetically as she went to push herself up off of him, but Richard didn't miss much of anything and seeing her panicked eyes, circled her wrists with his hands and held her on him.

"Rae, what's wrong?" he asked even as she struggled between the choice of waiting until he let her go or severely injuring him to make him do so.

The sirens multiplied and Raven bit back a fluent set of sailor's curses.

"Richard, let me go. I have to go. I'm sorry," she said, each sentence divided awkwardly by her struggling and Richard moved so she could stand, not relinquishing his grip.

"No, Raven!" he retorted harsher than he meant, but he was hurt and perplexed and since she had drawn her unreadable expression over her face like a veil, uncertain. He had to know…he didn't know what he had to know, but something.

Anything.

"Richard, please," she asked now and her urgent stare dropped from his to her hands caught in his and she felt him sigh deeply as she watched his hands drop hers.

"So I guess this means I won't get to take you for pizza?" he inquired with a half-smile but the sadness was evident in the swirls of his eyes and Raven felt bombarded with guilt and stupidity.

_I shouldn't have done this. _

_It will be like this every time._

_He doesn't deserve this._

_He deserves better._

The sirens were passing their building now and Raven started, jarred by the sound, hating it, hating what she'd gotten herself into...hating herself.

"I'm sorry," she whispered and ran through the door they'd come through, knowing that though she probably couldn't keep her secret long, jumping off the building would probably speed the revelation unnecessarily.

-------------------------------

Back on the roof, Richard sighed, running a hand through his hair, the image of frustration and disappointment as he hopped over the railing and sat on the precarious edge of the building's roof, legs swinging.

"Sorry?" he laughed emptily. "Okay...but for what?" he asked gently but there was only the wind to answer him.

Settling his back against the railing, not caring how dangerous it probably was for him to be sitting on the wrong side of it, Richard thought on Raven and where she might have gone, and why.

But he came up with nothing, and took soon to just watching the street below.

--------------------------------

"Shit!" Raven swung from building to building, cloak flapping like wings behind her. No one would hear her curse up here. The sirens had seemed to congregate in one general direction by the time she grabbed what little she needed and sped through the city's skyscrapers. Getting there, she pulled herself up onto the nearest rooftop to take in the scene.

Police cars scattered in front of a smaller white-grey building—a bank—and Raven could not repress a roll of her eyes.

Sometimes this got old.

Sweeping down from the roof, she landed with all the grace of her name next to the Chief of Police who clenched his jaw but nodded cordially at her. They didn't get along so well but being on the same side, they had little reason to quarrel.

"So what's the deal?" she asked coldly and the Chief bristled but coughed roughly.

"Scum, just trying to rob a bank, didn't do it right, took a hostage though," he said and Raven nodded. "Look Arella, we've got it covered so you can just—" he turned to say but the Chief found himself talking to air and he cursed.

Stupid woman kept getting in his way, making him look bad, but maybe she'd left. That'd suit him just fine.

And the Chief drew out a cigarette, lighting it and barking out orders around it as the other cops continued to try and get closer to the deceptively quiet seeming bank.

------------------------------

"Stupid man," Raven muttered as she dropped into the building through a vent she loosed from the roof of the bank. Silent as possible, she crawled, listening for where the idiots might be, or the hostage who was more likely to be the one making noise. The metal was cold on her fingers as she moved as quickly as possible, pausing when she heard a cough.

"Shut up!" a voice said and Raven moved to the closest vent to try and peer through. Three men—presumably—dressed all in baggy black clothes and wearing black face masks held guns and seemed to be bickering amongst themselves.

Idiots, she thought darkly. This wouldn't take long.

But where was the hostage?

She let her masked eyes wander past the three men and did a double take.

"No way," she breathed.

* * *

Thanks for the wait! Sorry this chapter gave me Hell and stuff but hope it came out okay and hope the next one will be out soon. Waste Not, Want Not, too. Review if you've got a sec. 

-castle


	8. Chapter 7

Thanks so much for the great responses for this story. I'm working on the next chapter of 'Waste Not, Want Not' and it should be out next week some time, if not sooner. Whoo! Anyway, thanks to everyone who reads this and extra special thanks to those who read and review.

Dedicated to: **sekai no yakusoku** and **The Writer you Fools**

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* * *

_

_Accidental_

_Chapter Seven: _

* * *

"Richard?" she breathed, stunned. 

But wait...no...

No glasses.

But then...who?

The 'hostage' was indeed tied to a chair—sloppily Raven noted as she saw the figure discreetly working his hands free, which she gave him credit for since many others would have just sat there, fearful and useless. She took in his attire—jeans—okay, so she did remember Richard was still in school uniform when last she saw him and doubted he'd gone back to change—and a red t-shirt, a tear in the right sleeve. His skin was the same even fairness of Richard's though, his hair the same ebony hue, and his eyes...ah there.

His eyes were a shocking amber, brown maybe, but the flecks of yellow made them almost fiery and Raven found herself thinking herself skeptical at the hostage's current predicament. He didn't seem the type to get caught...doing anything...much less get himself tied up while doing it.

Shifting her weight slightly, she winced as the air vent creaked even under her slight body mass and held her breath as one of the men ventured closer, staring right up at her through the tiny vents, not knowing it. Urgently glancing for which way to quickly get out of sight as the man reached out a hand to move the vent, Raven stopped as she heard a thud and a yell and the man whirled in time to see the former hostage slam a chair into his face.

Silently Raven favored him with a 9.3 for skill.

But just as the lad set the chair down a sickening and hollow impact could be heard as from out of Raven's perspective a well-polished black boot buried itself in his stomach, causing the lad to go down on a knee, almost fetal, cursing.

"Fuck," he groaned and a cool chuckle answered him.

"Yes you are, fucked. Did you think you could slip away?" the voice slithered around the room, snakelike and ten times as venomous.

"Fuck you. I would have if—" The boot collided with his stomach again and he coughed harshly, a speckle of blood forming at the corner of his mouth as he sputtered angrily, cut off.

"If fate didn't have such a nasty sense of humor, is that it boy? No, wrong. Fate's got nothing to do with this. I've eyes all over the city. Why do you think I had my men try for this bank, hm?" Distorted in a strange, muffled way, Raven only now could tell that it was a man's voice. She thought to dive down on him, just knock him out but something held her back and she waited for him to possibly reveal more...something was off here.

Other than this strange hostage's uncanny similarity to Richard in appearance.

Bent over, hands pressed hard on the floor, the guy did not answer and now the voice gained a body as a tall, muscular and well suited man stepped into the light, pulling the guy up by his black locks, eyeing him murderously, humor gone.

"Answer me, boy!" the man glowered. Imposing, dressed also all in black, loose coat and hat giving him a private-eye feel, Raven half-expected the hostage to yield as he jutted his chin out at the man, eyes glimmering that eerie amber shade and he simply said in a harsh whisper:

"I thought you had all the answers."

The mockery was evident in every note and earned him a growl from the man as he threw him down with unexpected strength, the boy hitting the floor hard with another grunt.

"Fool," this strange man in black said with the air of judge and jury as he kicked him one last time. At this point the other men were getting up again, each one readjusting the various askew positions of his mask, the tension noticeable without the visibility of their faces as each aimed their glances at the boy on the ground.

"Boss?" one asked gruffly. The 'boss' waved a hand almost royally.

"Do what you will, but bring the money. You know what happens if you don't." The cool edge was back in his voice as he exited Raven's limited view through the vents again and she heard a door swing, presumably a side or back door.

The click of those well polished boots echoed forebodingly and Raven had the impression of a tyrant king having exited a grand hall rather than some nameless jerk having left a blah-faced banking room with less than sufficient henchmen.

"On your feet, lousy piece of—" but the man never finished as the boy, chuckling to Raven's mired confusion, swept a leg under his feet and floored the man, the man's head making a nauseating thud on the tiles.

"Well alright," the boy smirked and got to his feet just as the other two worked to surround him.

_Enough's enough,_ Raven thought and not meaning to be dramatic, but somehow always managing, busted through the vent. Taking one of the men down with a forceful landing, sending his gun skittering to one side of the room and the bag—presumably full of money—also fell to the ground. The boy eyed her speculatively.

"How long were you up there?" he asked, not bothering to hide his irritation.

"That's irrelevant," she replied coldly, noting the trained gun fluctuating between her and the boy, held by the last man left standing...who Raven realized was somewhat slight for a man.

Maybe it wasn't a man at all. Raven took a step forward but the figure cocked the gun, hand shaking.

"S-stop!" the figure ordered hoarsely, attempting to conceal herself, but the voice was undeniably female. Raven wondered at that.

"Just drop it, kid," the boy said, a devilish grin creeping through his eyes and across his face.

"Shut up!" she said, nervously switching the gun's aim to the boy.

"Your friends are down. You haven't got a chance," Raven tried to reason with the girl-criminal.

"N-no! I can't...he'll..." she trailed off and Raven took another step—foolhardy, but she really didn't expect the girl to shoot.

She shot.

Raven seeing her finger move had turned but the bullet hit anyway, ripped past her side, only grazing it, but her intake of air was clearly audible.

"Fuck," the boy cursed again, his favorite word, Raven thought too lightly for the situation as he moved toward the girl who looked about to shoot at him when Raven knocked it out of her hand.

"Give up," Raven bit out, but the girl grabbed the money bag on the floor and fled. The boy followed and this time it was Raven: "Fuck!" as she trailed the boy who had taken off trailing the girl as fast as she could, hand covering the bleeding in her right side with little success at staunching it. "Not good," she said to herself through gritted teeth, pausing time enough to rip a long strip from her cloak—she had about twelve, she could spare one at any moment—and wrapped it around the wound, securing it at her other side.

It wasn't much but she took off again anyway.

It would have to do.

Shooting a grappling hook, she took to traveling the faster way—by skyscraper, noting as she did with a biting moment of cynicism that the police were still positioned outside the bank, still thinking someone was in there...

_Those idiots_, she thought, exasperated but her attention came away from them fast as she spotted the red of the boy's shirt and not far ahead a small black speck darting away at admirable speed. Dropping down to the alley entrance they'd just entered, Raven landed in a crouch, the cold gray of the ever reaching buildings notably grimy and the smell of the city particularly dank in this part of it. Feet hitting the concrete below them mercilessly, she sped after the odd two ahead of her—boy and girl, questionable hostage and not so questionable criminal accomplice.

But where was the connection? That man with the well polished black boots seemed to know the boy...not in a good way. And the girl...she didn't seem all too suited to her line of duty currently.

_What is going on tonight?_ Raven pondered, irked by the confounding nature of it all even as she ran through the shadows of alleyways, always just in time to see a flash of red flit around a corner and out of sight, enough to know which way to go, not enough to catch him or her first.

Rounding what felt like the fiftieth corner, her ears picked up the sound of metal rattling and she jerked her head up to see the girl just reaching the top of the fire escape on this building, the red shirted boy close behind. Shaking her head, Raven tore out the grappling gun again, shooting it and pulling herself up with a powerful arc that allowed her to land in front of the fleeing girl in black, still gripping the money bag like her life depended on it. One of the city's typical nighttime winds blew across the rooftops, making Raven's torn cloak flap ominously behind her as she watched through her eye mask, wound forgotten as she let her hands rest at her sides.

The boy in red reached the top just then.

"Hey kid, why don't you just run back to the Boss and leave the money here, hm?" he said casually, sauntering up to the black clad girl like they were in the halls of a high school.

Raven felt the almost irrepressible urge to punch him.

"Stop, don't come closer!" she cried wildly, running to the edge of the building.

"Boy! Knock it off!" Raven stalked over to him. He turned to face her.

"Nightwing is it? Or Arella?" he asked, still casual. "You're always in the papers...what?" he cocked a brow at her and then, "Oh, afraid she'll jump? She won't," he commented and chuckled.

Raven glanced over at the girl who seemed to be debating furiously with herself as whether to leap or make a dash for the other side of the building's fire escape.

"I don't have time for you," Raven muttered, pushing past the boy, and approached the girl, slowly hands out in front of her. She did not see the considering gaze he laid upon her as she stepped toward the overwhelmed girl at the building's edge. "Look, I don't think you want to do this," she spoke as patiently as she could manage, even as she felt the warmth of her own blood trickling down her leg, her makeshift bandage now saturated with it. The girl shook her head, no.

"Stop it...please...you have to let me go," the girl pleaded, voice wavering under power of the wind.

"Are you afraid, girl?" Raven asked.

"Yes," it was barely a whisper.

"What's your name?" The girl shook her head. Raven repressed a groan. She assumed the girl wouldn't tell her, but it was nice to be wrong sometimes.

"Come on girl, I'm not going to hurt you. Just give the money back. This can be sorted out," Raven tried a more coaxing approach. Her voice was stiff with the increasing pain from her wound and her typical inability to be very compassionate, but she tried.

"No, no, I can't," the girl shook her head wildly, clutching it as if demons tormented her from the inside. Raven grimaced. She knew something of that.

"Listen—" Raven began, stepping very cautiously toward the girl. But just then a metallic clang sounded as something small and metal hit the space between Raven and the girl—a metal ball of some kind. There was little time to guess at its contents as it released a blinding cloud of thick gray-white and Raven heard the boy behind her cough. Pulling her cloak to cover her nose and mouth, Raven searched the girl out blindly with her free hand but the smoke cleared and the girl was gone...money too.

"Waste of my time," the boy said after a hacking cough, massaging his throat carelessly. Raven whirled and it looked like she might stalk right past the boy but she snagged him by the collar of his shirt as she passed, much to his protest. "Hey! What do you think—"

"Shut up," Raven cut in, a low growl in her tone, dragging the boy in red behind her. He scowled.

"Whatever you say," he muttered. The boy considered his options, which to his disappointment, seemed rather limited.

Not that he believed in limits much.

There was 1) go along with her—_yeah, right_; he almost rolled his eyes. And there was 2) make a break for it—_yeah, probably_. The boy resolved to wait until this crusader of the night became minutely more distracted, enough to hopefully loosen her surprisingly vice-like grip on his shirt. Then maybe he could try to run...

Raven stumbled and bit back a curse. The world was doing strange things, heaving up and down without accord, and she felt strangely cold. Her legs seemed like lead and she only vaguely recalled the wound in her side before her mortality betrayed her and the world went dark.

The boy thought he saw Raven, who he thought of as Nightwing/ Arella, waver—something in the dizziness of her eyes—and he prepared to dash away.

But it wasn't a necessary preparation. His eyes widened as the cloaked figure crumpled to the concrete of the roof, inches from the door she'd been headed to with him in tow. Rubbing the back of his head thoughtfully, he groaned.

"Just leave her," he whispered over and over to himself. He turned away. "Just leave her," he said again, some anger evident in his indecision. He took a few steps.

And he stopped.

"Fuck," he said for what must have been the fiftieth time that night and turned back toward the fallen hero in black. He repeated the curse word for posterity as he knelt beside the unconscious Raven and scooped her into his arms, disappearing inside the door to the building seconds later.

And the roof had no signs of there ever being anyone there at all that night.

Except a few permanent bloodstains a couple feet from the door.

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At another part of the city Richard Grayson sat, phone in hand, chin resting on the counter as he listened to the monotony of the ring on the other end.

Ring.

_Where is she?_

Ring.

_It's been hours._

Ring.

_She must be there._

Ring.

_What happened tonight?_

Click. A familiar, distinctly unenthused voice deadpanned through the airwaves:

_**This is Raven. Leave a message.**_

He sat up and held the phone tiredly.

"Raven, it's Richard...I just wanted to know if you were...doing alright."

He sighed. That was mostly it.

"See you tomorrow," he finished and hung up before the machine could cut him off due to too many awkward pauses. Mussing his hair absently, Richard pondered somewhat darkly on the literati of his affections.

He really did hope she was alright.

But more than that, Richard couldn't shake the unnerving feeling that the reason he kept hoping Raven Roth was alright, was because she wasn't.

_Something_ was wrong.

And he had no way of knowing how or what.

Some mysteries, like Raven herself, were alluring, intoxicating...drew a person like him in without hope of return. Other mysteries, like those surrounding Raven were maddening, aggravating...drove a person to circular thinking with no answers.

Those were the dangerous ones.

Smart enough to differentiate, Richard still did not sleep that night.

* * *

You probably know who the boy is. Duh. But what can I say? I'm losing my edge for subtlety lately. BAH. Anyway, you know my request. 

Review please!

And for those who celebrate/ do the turkey or whatever day thing: happy thanksgiving

-castle


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